For 40 years, I’ve photographed myself on my birthday wearing nothing but my white Lollipop underpants, shoes and socks. I made my first Birthday Suit self-portrait in Death Valley, CA in 1974.

Without fail, I’ve faced my camera every April 22nd since then to create a coded history of one woman’s journey through time.

As a girl-child of the 1950s, I came of age before women’s lib, and wanted to buck the stereotypes of a culture that branded me a pretty girl, thin enough to be a fashion model and not much more. Armed with my camera and tripod, I found a way to define myself on my own terms in the most open, vulnerable way I could.

My long-term project will continue for as long as I live. In 2015, I turn 70. I’m currently working on a book & film about my Birthday Suits.

Lucy Hilmer

Lucy Hilmer (b. 1945, Washington, DC) is a San Francisco photographer, poet, and documentary filmmaker. She studied photography with Lisette Model, Larry Sultan, and Tom Baird at UC Extension in the early 1970’s, after working in NYC for Public Television and documentary films. In 1980, she began making TV documentaries with her husband, cinematographer Bob Elfstrom. She is now making books and films based on her multiple, long-term, photographic series-in-time.

Since 1973, the subjects of Hilmer’s autobiographical, B&W portraits and self-portraits have been family and friends. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale, The Oakland Museum, Peter Palmquist’s Women In Photography International Archive at Beinecke Library, The Indie Photobook Library, and Getty Research Library. Recently, her “Birthday Suits” have been featured in Germany’s fotoMagazin and France’s 6Mois.